


chenle, don't

by _helios (the_heliades)



Series: shitty superhero au [5]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22949434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_heliades/pseuds/_helios
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that if Zhong Chenle had to yeet himself into a vat of radioactive acid to gain superpowers, he would.(a shitty superhero au alternate canon fic)
Relationships: Park Jisung & Zhong Chen Le, Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Series: shitty superhero au [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/795474
Comments: 22
Kudos: 204





	chenle, don't

**Author's Note:**

> This is for twt user FatKuwun who gave me the most fabulous prompt for my bushfire fundraising. Thank you for this, it really made me laugh as I wrote it .
> 
> This is an alternate future of the existing shitty superhero universe.

It happens like this:

It’s a sweltering hot day, at the tail end of summer with all of the heat and none of the sweet relief of freedom. Jisung’s finished with his day at school, changed out of his _disgusting_ polyester blend school uniform and into his breathable, lightweight undercover costume of basketball shorts and a large t-shirt. The patrol Jisung is assigned to is short and sweet, a routine couple of circuits around Hapjeong before he trades off with Mark. 

He’s on his own, because Jisung is a Perfectly Capable Vigilante who doesn’t need supervision. 

(He’s on his own because Taeyong’s new washing machine started screeching and flapping its lid at them this morning. Donghyuck thinks that it’s a faulty product that needs to be returned to the store. Taeyong and Doyoung think it’s haunted.)

(Neither of them remembered to cancel patrol with Jisung.)

Well, he’s sort of on his own.

Technically Jisung isn’t being _supervised_ , but he’s not alone.

‘This is going to be _great_ ,’ Chenle says, somehow his spirits and head held high despite the crushing weight of the humidity in the air. Jisung’s supposed to be the augmented superhero, but he’s trailing behind as Chenle makes quick, determined strides down the streets. ‘I can’t believe you’re finally letting me do this with you!’

It had taken months of begging, and bargaining, and complaining but eventually Jisung had given in. It was a small patrol, didn’t go for more than two hours, and in the year and a half Jisung had been doing this patrol, he’d never run into trouble.

‘Just stay quiet,’ Jisung says. ‘It’s still a patrol and we can’t bring attention to ourselves.’

‘Your shirt is like four sizes too big for you,’ Chenle says, rolling his eyes, ‘ _you’re_ bringing attention to yourself.’

‘It’s not too big,’ Jisung protests, ‘Donghyuck says that it’s what people are wearing these days.’

Although as he says it, Jisung realises that perhaps instead of trusting what Donghyuck says about fashion, he should trust people who know what they’re talking about when it comes to fashion. Like Jaemin or Doyoung, or even Johnny. (Although the last one was debatable.)

‘Is Taeyong still buying your clothes?’ Chenle says.

Jisung doesn’t answer.

It makes Chenle laugh. It’s a loud laugh that’s grown from the dolphin like squeal from when they first met. It’s the sort of laugh that always makes Jisung smile, always makes him want to join in with his own hiccupping, burst of laughter that he’s learnt not to control.

Of course, that’s when they get nabbed.

‘So,’ the man with the ridiculous glasses says, ‘you have walked into my trap.’

‘How do you know we didn’t do it deliberately, huh? Maybe you fell into _our_ trap,’ Chenle snarls.

He’s tied to a wooden chair with rope. They both are.

This operation is ludicrously amateur. The windows are wide open, so Jisung can see the Hangang as well as Suyeondo in the distance. The thugs tied their hands behind them, but both of them are standing behind the man with ridiculous glasses. And less than a few minutes in and Jisung is sure he’s going to get a monologue.

It’s surprising that they even managed to track Jisung down and capture him.

It’s been a good year or so since Jisung has been captured by an enemy, and he has to say that it is significantly less terrifying as the first time. Usually he’s the one staging rescue missions.

‘Because you screamed when we kidnapped you,’ the man with the ridiculous glasses says.

They are _especially_ ridiculous. The glasses are tinted orange with thick frames, the kind that would look stylish on someone who had the fashion sense and persona to pull it off. But this man is less artfully dishevelled and more horribly scruffy. He looks like he’s trying very hard to look like a villain in a comic book.

The fact that even Jisung can tell that is probably a count against him.

‘That could have been a ruse, to make you _think_ that you kidnapped us when really we were baiting you to kidnap us,’ Chenle continues. His words are quick, sharp and so incredibly made of bullshit that Jisung almost wants to groan.

But somehow it looks like it’s working, because the man with the ridiculous glasses falters for a whole second before clearing his throat.

‘Like I said, you have walked right into my trap. Two defenceless boys in the prime of their lives, the perfect hostages.’

‘Wait,’ Chenle says, ‘ _defenceless boys?_ ’

‘Hyung!’ Jisung hisses.

'Don't pretend,' the man with the ridiculous glasses says with a wave of his hand.

Jisung can't even work out how this crew managed to kidnap the pair of them, considering that they're probably the stupidest bad guys he's ever seen in his few short years working as a sidekick. If he were Donghyuck, he'd be full of sharp laughter and barbed insults at the mediocre operation in front of him. But Jisung knows better than to waste his breath on people like this.

Plus, he's almost wiggled his hands free and he's sure that he can knock out all three men in less than two minutes if he's quick enough.

He's rarely not quick enough.

'What are you going to do with us, huh?' Chenle says, tilting his chin up with more bravado than he has any right to possess. It’s only a few years of friendship that makes Jisung realise that Chenle is _diverting_.

And well, that works for him.

‘They didn’t stand a chance against us, did they?’ Chenle says later, brushing dust off his trousers. The man no longer with the ridiculous glasses let’s out a groan from where he’s sprawled on the floor, and Chenle takes a comically over-the-top step towards him. The man no longer with the ridiculous glasses stills, too sudden to be natural.

Jisung doesn’t even bother rolling his eyes. Chenle has spent the majority of the fight darting around on the edges of it, screaming encouragement every time Jisung landed a blow.

It, admittedly, had been a welcome change from the usual silence of the fight.

Chenle walks around the goons to where their bags had been stowed after they got nabbed. The ridiculous glasses had flown of their owners’ face, a good few meters, and they crack with a satisfying crunch as Chenle steps on them.

‘Whoops, ‘ he says with not a hint of remorse in his voice.

According to Jaemin, Chenle used to be a little angel when he first arrived at their school. Bright eyes, large smile and a high laugh. In the few months that he has known Chenle, Jisung has learnt that Renjun’s description of _Little Shit_ is far more accurate.

He loves it.

‘Anything you have to do?’ Chenle asks, slinging Jisung’s backpack at him as Jisung fishes around one of the goons’ pockets for an access card. Although, instead he comes up with a set of keys.

Amateurs.

‘Nah, I don’t think this is something we have to worry about, ‘ Jisung says with a shrug. These were clearly D-Grade Villains at best, maybe even E.

He’d already taken photos and sent them to Hansol for identification.

‘We should probably had back soon though,’ Jisung checks the time on his battered phone, ‘I have Geography homework that I want to finish before I go to bed.

‘ _Nerd_ ,’ Chenle sniggers.

They push through the doors of the room their in, stepping out onto a balcony that overlooks a larger room. It’s a basic set up, Jisung can see some cheap security cameras sets up around the room and there’s a few work benches scattered around the outside of the room.

And then there is the giant vat filled with bubbling, magenta liquid.

‘That’s pretty cool,’ Chenle hums as they make their way around the balcony, which is more a walkway that surrounds the entire room. ‘What do you think it is?’

‘Who knows.’ Jisung shrugs. ‘I wasn’t actually listening to what the were threatening us with.’

Chenle’s brow dips into a contemplative little frown, entirely to foreign on his normally expressive and bright face. Jisung doesn’t have a good feeling about this at all.

‘Chenle, no,’ he starts.

‘Chenle, _yes_ ,’ Chenle says moments before he throws himself over the railing and into the vat.

‘Was it just me, or did that sales assistant look at me weirdly?’ Chenle says around a mouthful of cheap, shitty convenience store brioche.

‘I wonder why,’ Jisung rolls his eyes, ‘you bought eight rolls and three yoghurts. And you dripped all over their store.’

‘Oh, _yeah_.’

Another glob of magenta goop slides down Chenle’s forearm and onto the floor. It sizzles against the pavement, and Jisung wonders for the sixteenth time in twenty minutes Chenle is a prime example of Natural Selection.

(At least he had an example to use in his Geography homework.)

(He has yet to work out which side of Natural Selection Chenle is falling on)

‘If you die tonight, I’m taking your stuff,’ he warns as they round another corner.

‘I’m not going to die,’ Chenle says with a bright laugh. He shakes out his hair, and Jisung steps away from the splatter. It misses him, landing on a tree and Jisung watches in horrified amazement as the leaf curls up and blackens, burning off.

‘You’re definitely going to die,’ Jisung mutters.

‘I’m going to have superpowers, and you’re going to _eat_ your words.’ Chenle rips another piece of bread with his teeth, chewing the too big piece with a too-pleased grin on his face.

Jisung wonders if it’s too late to make Renjun his best friend.

Or even Taeil. Taeil seems way more levelheaded than everyone else Jisung has met in the past few months. He wouldn’t jump into a radioactive vat of gelatinous, glowing goop.

Renjun _might_.

‘Do not come crying to me if you don’t have any superpowers,’ Jisung says with a scowl. Chenle barely hears him, hacking up what must be half a lung and spitting more goop onto the floor. ‘You can go complain to Jaemin.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Chenle says, cocky and proud and everything that he always is but more.

And less, because there’s no such thing as _presence_ when your hair is plastered to your head with bright pink slime.

‘What did you think?’ Chenle says, in a tone that _clearly_ indicates he’s not going to hear half of what Jisung says in the next half hour. Jisung remembers it from the time Chenle was convinced that their class president was an alien determined to take over the school and then the world.

(Spoiler, turns out she was.)

‘About what?’

‘What my superpowers will be! I hope it’s something cool like Sicheng-ge’s, or Hendery’s! Not something boring like Jaemin’s.’

‘Don’t Jaemin and Hendery have the same superpowers?’

‘Semantics,’ Chenle waves his hands around. ‘Jaemin has to sit down like he’s meditating, Hendery looks _cool_. Like he’s an actual superhero.’

Jisung decides not to talk about the fact that Jaemin is the one who goes out and fights crime every few nights, while Hendery almost exclusively uses his powers to make the toaster walk to him, and to cheat at video games.

‘Do you think I will be able to fly?’ Chenle gasps.

No, Jisung doesn’t think he’ll be able to fly.

Chenle can’t fly. He can’t talk to animals. He doesn’t have super speed. He can’t climb walls. And despite trying extremely hard, he also can’t manifest a moustache and bear made of flames, water or fog.

‘What about a super scream? Like the Canary?’ Chenle says, stretching his neck from side to side as they make their way down the twisting alley that leads to the apartment. ‘I can shatter glass and deafen those around me!’

‘You already do that,’ Jisung says with a shake of his head. ‘You don’t need superpowers to do that.’

‘I’m going to try it,’ Chenle says with a sniff. ‘And you are going to _eat_ your words.’

‘Chenle, don’t—’

Chenle tips his head back, and lets out a bloodcurdling screech. It echoes in the empty alley, and Jisung shudders under the power of it. A stray cat shoots out from under a parked car, disappearing down a driveway. It’s almost impressive.

And yet.

‘That was ordinary,’ Chenle says, and his lets out a sigh that slumps through his shoulders. For the first time since they left the villain base, for the first time since Jisung met Chenle, he sounds disappointed.

He sounds exhausted.

‘Hey,’ Jisung says, slapping a too-large hand onto Chenle’s shoulders, ‘don’t give up.’

Jisung isn’t good at encouragement. He never has been. When Johnny’s pet budgie escaped, he panicked and called Kun over because Johnny was _crying_. Jeno didn’t win Class President and the only solution Jisung could see was fighting the student who won, until the whole alien thing was revealed. He once visited Donghyuck in hospital with a broken foot and three stiches in his forehead, and all he could say was _keep your chin up_.

(That was the one, and only time, Jaemin had claimed that Jisung was no son of his.)

‘I’ll never be a superhero now,’ Chenle says glumly, and Jisung is _horrified_ when he realises that Chenle is actually dragging his feet as he walks. ‘I thought for sure that it was going to work.’

Jisung can’t believe he’s about to say it, can’t believe that he’s actually playing into the pathetic little tilt of Chenle’s shoulders.

‘Don’t give up. I mean, _Donghyuck_ is a superhero, and he doesn’t have any powers or anything.’

‘Maybe,’ Chenle says with a heaving sigh that shakes his whole body.

‘Why are you so interested in being a hero anyway?’ Jisung says. It sounds awkward and aggressive as he says it, and he feels like the same small boy who was dragged headfirst into social interaction just a year before.

‘It’s so cool,’ Chenle says. ‘It’s being there for people, and standing up for what’s right, and kicking ass and just being special you know? You guys are all apart of that and I just wish I could be?’

Jisung swallows down the lump in his throat, and for the three thousandth time in his life wishes that he has the emotional understanding and maturity that Jeno and Renjun so often portray. He tucks an arm around Chenle, pulls him into his side even though they’re both tall, gangly and Chenle is still covered in a thin layer of goop.

‘You don’t need to be a hero to be apart of anything, you’re not _not_ apart of anything? We wouldn’t be where we are without you, we wouldn’t be able to handle it nearly as well as we do already without you.’

It feels awkward, it feels terrible to lay yourself bear like this and Jisung decides that he’s not going to do this emotional vulnerability thing ever again.

‘You’re pretty damn special to me, you know that?’

Chenle smiles, and Jisung is reminded of those first few months when he was getting to know Chenle, when he was struck with how happy and bright and sweet the boy was. When he saw someone and saw the value in them beyond their use as a hero, their status within society. When he first saw a person and knew that they were special.

He tugs Chenle in even closer, and wishes he had the words to express the warmth in his chest that he feels when he’s around the other boy. 

The open the front door of Taeyong and Doyoung’s apartment, toeing off their shoes shutting the door behind them. The entry way is empty, and Jisung feels out of place as he makes his way down the hallway to the large living room and kitchen.

They moved in three weeks ago and it still doesn’t feel like it’s Jisung.

‘Hello?’ Jisung calls. ‘I’m home.’

‘All I’m saying is that it’s _obviously_ faulty,’ Donghyuck is saying loudly from across the room. ‘You’ve got a receipt for it, just take it back to the store and tell them that you need an exchange.’

‘You told us that Jaemin had a look at it and found _nothing_ wrong with it,’ Doyoung says, just as loud and just as annoyed. It makes Jisung wince as he makes his way closer to the bathroom, where he realises his family is crowded into.

Chenle starts going through the fridge, like he lives there. Jisung is fairly sure that it’s considered disrespectful, but Taeyong has shrunk away from the bathroom door and he hasn’t looked this afraid in months.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

Taeyong points to the new washing machine that was delivered that morning. Jisung had been excited to see it, because he was getting sick of hand washing his essentials in the sink and taking everything else to the laundrette fifteen minutes away.

But the door is flapping and Jisung is _almost_ sure that there’s a wailing sound coming from the machine. Donghyuck is crouched down next to it, batting the door closed every few seconds and watching as it bangs open again.

‘It’s haunted,’ Taeyong says. Doyoung lets out a grunt of agreement, stepping out of the bathroom and casting another look at the machine.

‘Taeyong bought a faulty machine from eMart,’ Donghyuck corrects, with all the disdain of a kid who moved out of their parents’ home, only to be called back to fix the computer every second day. ‘We have to take it back.’

‘We have to call an exorcist,’ Taeyong argues.

‘Hey guys,’ Chenle says around a mouth full of carrot, a loud crunching sound echoing as he finally steps into the room. ‘What’s going on?’ He pauses, eyes fixing on the washing machine and Jisung feels an incredible sense of _dread_. ‘Why is there a person in your washing machine?’

The room stills, and then the washing machine door flaps open five times, almost in excitement.

Donghyuck sighs. ‘I’ll call the exorcist.’ 


End file.
